At least 27 Palestinians were reported to have been killed on the morning of June 3 amid chaotic scenes at an aid distribution centre in the southern Gaza Strip. This follows a similar incident on June 1 when around 30 civilians were reportedly killed as people scrambled to get food supplies at an aid centre near Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Israeli and US governments and Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) – the private contractor backed by Israel and the US to take over aid distribution in Gaza – previously denied reports that Israeli troops had fired on civilians queuing for aid. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, criticised what he called “reckless and irresponsible reporting by major US news outlets”.

After the June 3 incident, however, the Israeli military admitted it had fired shots near a food distribution complex after noticing “a number of suspects moving towards them”. A GHF spokesperson said it was believed that the people had been fired upon “after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone”.

The violence at these privately run aid distribution points should come as no surprise, given the situation. For weeks since the Israeli government imposed its aid blockade in early March, the humanitarian crisis in the Strip has become more acute. By April the IPC (Integrated Food Security Phase Classification), a collaboration between numerous intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, was already reporting that Gaza’s whole population was experiencing critical levels of hunger.

The aid distribution system put in place by GHF, meanwhile has been widely criticised. On May 25, the day before GHF began operations in Gaza its American director, Jake Wood, resigned. He said he believed the organisation would not be able to fulfil the basic humanitarian principles of “humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence”.

Divide and control

The GHF’s aid distribution plan is similar in character to a plan published in December 2024 by an organisation of many former high-ranking Israeli military officers, Israel’s Defense and Security Forum (IDSF). The group proposed to take control of aid distribution from the UN agency Unrwa, which was the main organisation overseeing aid distribution until it was banned by Israel earlier this year.

The IDSF plan proposes that: “Israel will oversee the aid distributed by international organizations, effectively dismantling the distribution networks of UNRWA and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, guided by the principle: ‘The hand that distributes the aid is the hand that controls it’.”

This would be achieved with the creation of tent cities for internally displaced people (IDP), described as “humanitarian zones”. About 90% of the 2.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are IDPs. The IDSF plan, acknowledging that “extensive built-up areas have been left destroyed, or are no longer inhabitable”, says that “it is currently neither feasible nor recommended that the IDPs return at the conclusion of the war”.

Under the plan, parts of the Gaza Strip still inhabited by Palestinian civilians, will be divided by a “system of longitudinal and transverse axes”. Each “IDP city” created within these divisions will be managed as a “separate temporary administrative territory” following the principle of “divide and rule”.

The plan calls for responsibility for humanitarian aid in Gaza to pass “to a Humanitarian Directorate based on IDP cities and biometric certificates”. This is called the “Day After Plan” by the IDSF, designed as a way to control Gaza’s population, while driving a wedge between civilians and Hamas in order to destroy it. This despite the fact that a senior Israeli military commander has said it is impossible to eliminate Hamas.

The reality on the ground

The way GHF is currently organising aid distribution fulfils some of the principles of the IDSF plan. It replaces UN aid distribution with a private outfit, backed by both Israel and the US, yet it provides aid through only four sites.

These are located unevenly in the Gaza Strip, three in a small area southwest of Rafah, and the fourth south of Gaza City, in an area dominated by the Netzarim corridor, which is controlled by the Israeli military.

People queuing for access to aid reportedly have to walk along a narrow fenced corridor into a larger aid compound. Once inside they are subject to ID checks and eye scans to further control the distribution for aid.

This has reportedly resulted in long hours of waiting in the heat and led to chaotic scenes were people have broken down fences in a bid to get supplies. Among the people reported to have been killed on June 3 were three children and two women.

The GHF scheme had already been criticised before the violent incidents by both Palestinians and international aid organisations. The placement of the distribution sites means that people sometimes have to travel considerable distances to receive aid.

The UN children’s fund spokesperson Jonathan Crick asked: “How is a mother of four children, who has lost her husband, going to carry 20kg back to her makeshift tent, sometimes several kilometres away?”

As someone who researches urban design, conflict, and displacement, it is clear to me that designing the entire aid distribution system around only four “mega-sites” in limited areas in the Strip leads to the sort of overcrowding and chaos that have made violence all but inevitable.

In my opinion, in concentrating these sites while extensively demolishing habitable areas in the Strip, Israel is effectively weaponising essential civilian mechanisms against Palestinians. The aid scheme appears to prioritise political and territorial issues over the humanitarian distribution of aid.

The GHF system enables Israel to further concentrate civilians into makeshift encampments. Here they face inadequate and unhygienic conditions and shelter. These are particularly unsafe for women and children, while also being vulnerable to attacks by the Israeli military.

Palestinians also fear that the biometric screening will be used by Israel as a weapon of coercive control, rather than as a means to provide humanitarian relief.

Now people trying to access aid are dying. The international community must urgently put pressure on both sides to agree a ceasefire and on Israel to open Gaza up for a rapid large-scale humanitarian operation. To maintain the current GHF system is to invite further tragedy.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Irit Katz, University of Cambridge

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Irit Katz receives funding from the AHRC.